Game Dev Tycoon Challenge Complete

At the beginning of March, we posed a challenge for ourselves and each other. Celebrating our love of the simulation genre, we wanted to dive back into Game Dev Tycoon, a game that puts you in the CEO seat of your very own game development company. We finally completed the challenge!

After we both found the time to sit and play the game for a bit, we finally made it to the end. We played separately, each going through 35 years in the game with our respective gaming companies. We wanted to see which company was more successful. Can you guess who won?

I ended up winning, but I may have had a bit of an advantage. I’ve played Game Dev Tycoon a bit more often than Rachel has. I even have the mobile version to play on the go. We each did have the hints unlocked throughout this duration, allowing us that leg up from previous runs we’ve done instead of trying to figure out which aspect of a game was most important for which genre. I wonder how things would have changed had we kept the hints off?

I would have been screwed if we kept the hints off. I had a terrible run this time around. I haven’t played the game as much as you, but I’ve done a few games on it. This was by far my worst time. I went bankrupt once (we set a rule in place that if we went bankrupt three times, we were out) and I spent about five years in-game being bailed out by the bank. By the time I made a decent amount of money, I’d have to repay the bank and then I’d be in the negatives again, having to be bailed out… rinse and repeat.

That always annoyed me with the bailout… I mean, it’s realistic, at the very least, but I feel as if you don’t make a couple of great games — scored 8 or higher — between the bailout and paying back the loan, then it’s just going to be a vicious cycle. I was lucky enough to not have any bailouts or bankruptcies. I had a fairly smooth game, although I did kind of rush at the end. In the last eight or so years, I was able to open up the two labs and I just made the last of my employees specialists before the 35 years was up.

I didn’t get any of that – no AAA games, no labs, never trained my employees high enough to become a specialist in something. Once I started making money, I rolled with it and continued making games and upgrading my game engines. In the end, I was doing really well. If we had gone longer than 35 years, I might have had a chance at beating you (or at least getting closer to your score).

I would have loved to keep going. Maybe if we ever do this in the future, we can opt to do the longer, 42-year run, haha! I didn’t get a chance to make a AAA game or MMORPG, which I would have loved to do. I was able to make a couple of consoles, which helped my score. In the end, I scored 53,188,028. My least profitable game was called Ripple Effect, a Superhero Action game, named after an old superhero novel series I’ve written. My most profitable game was Ace of Spades, the third in a series of Romance Adventure games, of all things.

Honestly, that makes sense for you. I feel like you tend to do well with the genres that you don’t particularly care for. I’m not sure why that is. A lot of my games were pulled out of my rear and I started stronger and totally lagged halfway through before ending on a strong. I still didn’t earn nearly as many points as you though. In the end, my score was 41,253,358. So, I was 11,934,670 points behind you. Good job. My least profitable game was Assassin Wanted. It was an assassin RPG-Adventure game that rated 4, 4, 3, 4, by the four reviewing companies. I have to say – I did awful, but out of this whole run, I never got a 1- or 2-score. My most profitable game was Spice It Up, a cooking casual-simulation game rating 10, 9, 10, 9. It was the sequel to a cooking casual game called Heat It Up which rated 8, 9, 8, 7. So, I improved, which was nice.

Thank you! Improving is always awesome! You did have one last game that you were just about to hit the finish button on right before the game ended. I wonder how your score would have been with that? I didn’t have any major failures, which was nice. I think my lower scores were in the 4 and 5 ranges. I did get one perfect 10 scored game earlier in the run for a Pirate Adventure called Treasure Cove. It ended up having three sequels, but I was never able to recreate the perfect score. That boost helped. This was a fun challenge, though! It was great to go back to Game Dev Tycoon, but I always wish there was more time for the story elements of it.

This was a fun challenge. I think we should definitely have a rematch in the future. In the meantime, we need to figure out our next challenge!

Have you played Game Dev Tycoon? Let us know about them in the comments below! If you like this post, please share it around.

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